In honor of my joining Facebook to further some committee work (and noting Goldman Sachs investment in same, as well as their role "
in contributing to the worst US economic crisis since the 1930s"), I offer the following doggerel made by an anonymous critic of Sir Robert Vyner (presumably in the 1670s)
- Cursed be the banker and hanged the covetous banker
- That like a fatal rust or cancer
- That viper-like through mothers' bowels eat
- Their way to private wealth and hope to cheat
- Abused mankind with glorious words.
[The source may be BL Add. MS. 34,362, Poems 1679-1681. But I draw it from David Allen, "Bridget Hyde and Lord Treasurer Danby's Alliance with Lord Mayor Vyner,"
Guildhall studies in London history 2, 1 (1975): 16.
]
The Family of Sir Robert Vyner, by John Michael Wright (d.1694)
